


you wear me down ('til I don't feel so bright)

by lanthanesthai



Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types, Les Misérables - Victor Hugo
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Coffee, Crack, Gen, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-10-17
Updated: 2014-10-17
Packaged: 2018-02-21 13:45:18
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,392
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2470400
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanthanesthai/pseuds/lanthanesthai
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All Combeferre wants is sleep.</p><p>(Or the one where Combeferre is the mother of some very annoying twenty-something year-old children)<br/>(and the one where I don't meant that literally)</p>
            </blockquote>





	you wear me down ('til I don't feel so bright)

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Ecclxsia](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ecclxsia/gifts).



> [prompt from tumblr](http://kierenwalkr.co.vu/post/100125013730/m-azing-korrakun-my-favorite-college)

** 10:37am **

 

Combeferre is almost late to a seminar for the third time this year (and the semester only started three weeks ago) due to:

“Enjolras, I swear, if you don’t return that thing I’m going to call the police on you myself.”

“Jehan, whatever it is Montparnasse gave you, _do not take it_.”

“As a medical student, I hereby proclaim that it is very unlikely that you have cholera—no, I’m not translating that into a percentage,” and

“I don’t think I’m the best person to be asking about wedding decorations, ‘Chetta.”

Luckily, the three-time rule has been observed and his seat ( _the_ seat—three rows back and dead centre) has remained untouched. If this has something to do with the fact that almost everyone in the class is more that a little wary of the curly haired boy with the antagonistic nature, then Combeferre isn't exactly going to complain about it.

He slides into his seat mere seconds before their professor arrives, one corner of his mouth turning up at the sight of the small smile gracing R’s features. They haven’t been formally introduced, but it’s the letter he scrawls at the top of his notebooks (not that ‘Ferre has ever actually seen him take notes).

Enjolras had made some remark or other about what kind of person was pretentious enough to only go by one letter, but Combeferre doesn’t really want to hear about pretentiousness from Enjolras.

They have an interesting session in which they discuss the ramifications of marijuana legalisation. (And as much as ‘Ferre loves Enjolras, it’s nice to have some classes without him because when Enjolras is in the room, there is no such thing as a ‘discussion’.)

R makes some brilliantly cutting points, as always (while his pen moves furiously over the page( and ‘Ferre counters from a medical, humanitarian perspective (to be honest, it’s the only reason he’s taking this class). When he looks down at R’s notepad, he can’t quite see what it is he's drawing, but maybe that's because he's hiding it a little with his hand.

 

**04:48pm**

 

Tuesday is the day that Combeferre has the most going on, and while it’s tiring and he’ll graduate just fine if he drops a few, he doesn’t really want to. They’re interesting, at the very least, and while he’s learning, he doesn’t have to worry about keeping Enjolras out of jail or Joly out of quarantine.

He has other interests, of course, like moths and, well, _everything_  (and apparently masochism because he _lives_ with some of these people and he’s convinced that he could find some less stressful friends if he just tried).

He closes (and locks, fire hazard be damned, he is _not_ getting distracted) the door to his room, firing up his laptop and adding his new assignments to the priority list on the whiteboard above his desk.

He is going to sit down, and he is going to _work_ and then he’s going to bed at a reasonable time (ten, maybe—eleven at the latest) because he hasn’t had a decent night’s sleep in a week and the Amis can take care of themselves for twelve hours.

 

**11:07pm**

 

He manages to plough through his high-priority assignments. They still need some revision and quite a bit of editing, of course, but the most urgent of them isn’t due for another two and a half weeks, so it’s not as if he doesn’t have time. Combeferre is exhausted, still, and he’s brushed his teeth and really, all he wants is to be unconscious. And if the apartment is a little too quiet then he’s going out of his way not to notice it.

He drops into bed, seconds away from blissful oblivion, when his phone starts ringing. He considers ignoring it—in fact, he plans to—but there’s a relatively high chance that one of them is actually dying, so he answers the phone and does what he can to stay awake while a mildly frantic (well, more frantic than usual) Courfeyrac explains why he should probably make his way to university printing offices immediately.

‘Ferre groans and complies, taking a pair of scissors with him as he leaves.

 

**11:59pm**

“Next time you try something like this, Enj, I’m letting you go to prison,” ‘Ferre says, but he’s half asleep and they both know he doesn’t mean it.

Why he thought that Enjolras would actually listen to him when he told him to throw the keycard away (which he says he ‘found’ and which probably means he ‘acquired’) he doesn’t know. Enjolras has proven himself to be incorrigible and usually ‘Ferre would find this amusing if it weren’t for the fact that he could be sleeping right now.

He cuts the plastic key card into tiny little pieces, throwing them into six different trash cans on his way back to the apartment (Enjolras went with Courf to dream up some more sleep-preventing expeditions). He keeps the part of the card with the hologram in his pocket so that he can dispose of it somewhere that Enjolras never goes, because, really, he wouldn’t put reconstructing it past him. He doesn't really care what they two of them get up to next, as long as he doesn't have to bail them out of prison, it's got nothing to do with him.

 

**12:18am**

 

‘Ferre can barely make out what Jehan is saying through all of the giggling. Also because his ability to process information is being severely hindered by the fact he needs to sleep, but mainly because of the giggling.

“There are—’Ferre, there are so many—” he hiccups. “So many pretty fishes in the fountain. Fish. Fishy-fish. They’re so—” another hiccup “—so, _cute_ ‘Ferre.”

Combeferre can hear the smile in his voice and usually he’s thrilled by the prospect of a happy Jehan (he’s thrilled by the prospect of a happy anyone) but for reasons that don’t need to be reiterated, feeling anything other than exhaustion doesn't seem to be a likely prospect for any time in the near future.

“Ferre, I think— _ooh, look_ —no you can’t, you can’t look ‘cause you’re inside my phone, but— _but_ I think that the fishy-fish want me to come swimming with them.”

Combeferre suddenly feels very awake. He’s hopping into his shoes (he hadn’t even bothered to change after Enjolras Incident #98 because he knew _exactly_ what kind of night he was going to be) even as he says,

“Actually, I think the fishy-fish want you to recite Beowulf to them.”

Jehan hums, a long note that seems to drag on for a breath or nine longer than he meant it too. He giggles again. “Really?”

“Uh-huh,” ‘Ferre agrees, pulling on a jacket (taking one for Jehan too, who is apparently allergic to buying winter clothing) and opening the door. “They want the whole thing. In Old English. I’m a doctor, I know these things.”

He’s not quite a doctor yet, but the logic seems to work. He doesn’t hang up, but slips his phone into his pocket, fading out on the first line of Jehan’s recital.

 

** 01:03am **

 

‘Ferre doesn’t even bother going back to the apartment. Instead, he sits in the cafe across the street from where the impromptu rescue mission was launched, and waits.

He doesn’t want to know what the barista saw in his face that led to a large cup filled with espresso and a pitying look when he tried to pay for it, but he imagines it was a little terrifying. Maybe she realised that these may possibly be his final hours, because even if he makes it through the night— _or the morning_ , he thinks, looking at his watch—there’s no way he’s making it through the ensuing day.

He’s not even surprised, anymore. He thinks, a little sadly, that he might be beyond that. He’d visited at least three different parks before he found Jehan shivering, perched on the marble rim with his feet in the water, still reciting the old-English epic.

There—unsurprisingly—hadn’t been any fish in the fountain (partly why it had taken him so long to find the right one) despite Jehan’s incredibly vocal, if slurred, protests to the contrary. ‘Ferre had managed to talk him out of joining the non-existent fishy-fish in their aquatic wonderland on the pretext of letting Jehan knit him one of his floral jumpers. He hopes that Jehan won’t remember this in the morning— _later_ in the morning—but the way his luck’s going, he probably will.

 

**02:23am**

Joly somehow manages to get himself admitted to a hospital on the complete other side of town and it takes Combeferre longer than he’d like to get there.

To be honest, he isn’t completely sure what the issue actually is until he arrives. (Public transport was scarce at 1:15 in the morning). The issue is, that there isn’t one.

Joly had gone down to the emergency room after his fever had risen, with his folder-full of printed webpages declaring him a sufferer of everything from hayfever to stage three thyroid cancer. Clearly the doctor who had examined him was more out of it than ‘Ferre was because he’d actually agreed with Joly about his diagnosis of cholera (it was actually just a bad case of the flu).

By the time someone with more than twelve functioning brain cells had worked out that Joly did not, in fact have cholera, Joly had already gone through three panic attacks; Bossuet and Musichetta had skipped their shifts at the bar to stay with him, and he had already been in hospital for three hours—which they wanted to charge him for.

After ‘Chetta had explained the situation ‘Ferre had a pleasant discussion with the hospital director about misdiagnoses of patients, exacerbating the condition of a hypochondriac and emotional suffering, during which they agreed that the hospital was lucky that the three of them weren’t planning on filing a complaint.

(He also gets an opportunity to shadow one of the senior doctors out of it, which he's quite looking forward to.)

 

** 03:39am **

 

Combeferre spends around half an hour in a police waiting room after bailing out Bahorel for getting into—another—bar fight. He is spectacularly drunk, and even louder than usual. Usually, Bahorel has enough sense to leave before a fight drags on for so long that someone actually calls the police.

When ‘Ferre brings this up, Bahorel bemoans the fact that his usual drinking buddy isn’t doing so much drinking anymore because he’s trying to impress some guy in his Social Issues class.

If he’s being honest, Combeferre isn’t listening to much of this. Bahorel is overly verbose when he’s _sober_. When he’s drunk he tends to use a lot of words to say not that much at all. Listening to about one sentence in ten, it’s usually possible to keep track of what it is that he’s talking about. As long as you nod and make listening noises, Bahorel usually doesn’t notice.

Instead, ‘Ferre takes the opportunity to fire off a few texts to Courf and Enj and one of Jehan’s strange poetry friends, just to check that they all made it home okay. He also sends one to ‘Chetta’s phone (Joly, Bossuet and ‘Chetta have a habit of trading phones, so while their styles are different, you can never really be sure who it is that you’re texting, and if you call, who it is that’ll pick up) telling them to call him if they need anything else.

 

**4:08am**

He walks Bahorel back to his apartment, making sure that he gets into bed (and mildly irritating his roommates in the process). He leaves a glass of water and a couple of aspirin on the bedside table before walking back to his own complex. He has one text from Enjolras saying that he’ll be spending the night at Courf’s and one from Jehan’s strange poetry friend #1 saying that Jehan will be staying with them.

He considers trying to sleep, but after the monstrosity of an espresso he had earlier (which he isn’t sure wass legal, but which he knows certainly wasn’t _safe_ ), he knows that’s not going to happen. Luckily, he only has one class tomorrow and though it starts early, it finishes pretty early too. He’s not going to be able to sleep, so he’ll have to power through with coffee and concentrated power of will.

He sits at his desk and powers up his laptop, going back into the kitchen to start up the coffee machine. As he now has the time, he figures he might as well start on his revisions.

 

** 06:59am **

 

‘Ferre cuts it closer than he ever has in regards to arriving for class. He’d have to be practically incapacitated to actually be _late_ but the lecturer is only a few metres behind him as he makes his way into the room, health-hazard espresso in hand. He slides—well, _falls_ —into his seat less than gracefully, not a hundred percent sure that he’s still awake (not a hundred percent sure that he's still _alive_ ).

Out of the corner of his eye, he spots a can of Monster and an idea comes to him. He looks from his coffee to the can and back again. When prompted, he won’t be able to say what exactly possesses him to do it, but he upends the energy drink into his half-finished cup of coffee.

He can feel he’s being looked at by more than one person in his row, but he’s really beyond the point of caring. He swills the toxic mixture around in the cup, with the solemnity of a man in his final minutes.

“I can say,” he begins, “with all medical and scientific certainty, that I am going to die.”

Before anyone has time to react (not that ‘Ferre knows what they could have done) he downs the mixture like a shot, too wiped out to note how it burns going down.

Despite drinking around six espressos and one batch of poison in a three-hour period, he can feel himself falling asleep anyway. As it happens, he looks over in time to see R laughing at him, smile hidden behind his hand, eyes crinkling at the corners.

Combeferre is never so tired that he can’t smile back.

**Author's Note:**

> title taken from "up all night" by kids in glass houses
> 
> I finally did the editing thing!


End file.
